Twitter Chats & Generation Y

Twitter chats have changed the way people come together and talk about different topics. I remember back in the day when I would sign onto AOL and find a chat room that fit whatever I wanted to talk about. No longer do I have to go to a chatroom, because everything is available to me on Twitter. I personally use the website TweetChat.com because it’s very simple. It allows me to control chat speed, refresh times, and also has smart pausing when I scroll and check out what was said earlier in the conversation. I mainly participate in two different twitter chats, #genychat and #jobhuntchat.

Every week #genychat brings students, young professionals, and others together to talk about relevant topics to generation y. Don’t know what Generation Y is? Take a look at A Brief History of Generation Y.  Conversations have ranged from the catch 22, dealing with needing experience to get experience, to the American Dream. Every Wednesday at 9pm EST you have a diverse group of people brought together to talk about the legacy of their generation.

This week I have the pleasure of co-hosting this hour-long chat with @WriterChanelle. The topic I chose was influenced by local politics. Oklahoma is currently in its election year for the next state governor. I asked around to see what people thought about different candidates and I found out that a large percentage of my friends don’t like sharing their political preference. This was very bizarre to me. You always here never talk about politics, sex, or religion at the dinner table, but why is that? Maybe I was raised to be a little more open-minded about such topics and don’t mind discussing them freely. Politics to me is just an opinion. You support a candidate or you don’t. Why is that so hard to talk about? We will be discussing this subject as well as matters of privacy as it relates to politics and maybe we’ll venture off onto the hot topic of privacy in social media. You will have to tune in to find out and I assure you, it will be a great discussion!

The other chat I participate in is #jobhuntchat. wthashtag.com defines #jobhuntchat as Twitters best, and only chat for the job search. A diverse group made up of job seekers, recruiters, HR professionals, resume writers, career experts and coaches, bloggers, college students, and other tweeps join in for the chat to bring the best direct FREE job search advice you can find. €œ Although I have currently found a job, it’s always a learning experience to hear HR professionals and people just like me sharing stories and tips on how to find a job.

The moderators of #jobhuntchat are @Blogging4Jobs and @CornOnTheJob. This chat offers different questions each week where people freely share advice and horror stories as it relates to the job-hunt experience. If you are looking for a job or want to learn different tips and tricks in the job-hunting world, visit this chat every Monday night at 10pm EST.  Last week the chat collected over 1,100 tweets in under one hour!

I would be delighted to have everyone join me for this weeks #genychat, Wednesday at 9pm EST, where we will be discussing politics, privacy, and generation y.  In the meantime check out this YouTube video with Dave Chappel on politics and sharing who you voted for. Don’t forget to follow @GenYChat on Twitter!

Photo Courtesy of @GenYChat & @WriterChanelle

Blake McCammon, is an intern at Xceptional HR. Connect with Blake on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.  Blake is a recent grad of Northeastern State University with a degree in Business Administration.  During school he created and managed his university’s social media strategy.